


Wicked Game

by Lafayette1777



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: And angst!, BB-8 is kind of like a service dog except the droid version, Canon Divergence, Epilepsy, Finn is recovering from his spinal injury, I love her, Kylo Ren is ever present, Leia is a scary pseudo-maternal figure, M/M, Major Character Injury, Poe with tattoos, Post-Movie(s), Traumatic Brain Injury, and falling in love, and trying to make star wars serious, apparently angsty poe is my thing now, but not physically, epilepsy droid, slight deviation from the canon, they're both trying to heal, title from the Chris Isaak song, well here I am again, which is really ultimate angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 06:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5573608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafayette1777/pseuds/Lafayette1777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Healing is the space between being <em>alive</em> and being <em>better.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Wicked Game

**Author's Note:**

> I stayed up til 4 am for these two.   
> Anyways, I don't have epilepsy so please let me know if anything is inaccurate/insensitive. I messed with some of the science, because this is the Star Wars universe, so if they have faster than light travel then why not have better epilepsy treatments also.   
> Thanks for reading!

He’s safe, inside the helmet. He buckles the chin strap, not because he’s terribly concerned about vapid Resistance protocol, but rather for the quiet placidity it encloses him in. It means he’s headed for the cockpit. It means he’s headed for that moment where everything breaks away, the world falls back, and it’s just stars. Stars, and nothing at all. 

“Are you ready for this?” General Organa asks. It’s a question he’s heard before - she’d asked it when he’d gotten back from Jakku, in the wake of his First Order captivity. Then, though, it hadn’t really been a question. The Resistance had needed him to lead the Starkiller expedition. It’s a fact of life. You’re not always ready for what’s in your path. 

He knows that better than anyone.

Now, though his answer is an identical _yes_ , he is slightly more prepared. Phantom blood no longer seems to stick to his face. The burns from the crash on Jakku no longer sting when he takes a hot shower. Kylo Ren’s invasion only makes him shake when thinks about it at night, by himself. And though he may not be able to get the image of a comatose Finn out of his mind for a longer than half a second, Finn is going to get better. He _will_ get better. 

Between training missions and escorting Republic refugee ships and speculating on the locations of First Order hiding places, he ends up in medbay. He talks to Finn. Finn does not talk back. 

“You’re alright?” Organa prods, and this time there’s something more in it. Something almost sympathetically maternal, if the General was anything but fierce, and angry, and grieving. But she’s not. 

“Of course.” He smiles at her, and hopes it reaches his eyes. “BB-8 will take care of me.”

Organa, naturally, is one of the few who knows how true this is. BB-8 chirps in agreement, rolling cheerfully into Poe’s shin. The General reaches out to squeeze his bicep with a hand that is both supportive, and warning. 

He can’t breathe deeply again until they’re out in the black, and the expanse of nothing surrounds him on three sides. BB tells him to calm down, to inhale. He does as he’s told, and then the stars blur around them and the universe wrinkles. 

 

 

Finn wakes up during a dismal Sunday twilight, when half the base is indulging in the end-of-weekend tradition of plastering themselves over the stools and booths of whatever this month’s favored saloon is. They’ve stopped asking Poe, at this point - he is well known, and so is his business. While the rest of the Resistance seems to have forgotten that Finn is a hero over the last month, they seem to have no trouble remembering that Poe is enamored with him. Or, at least, that’s the rumor.

There’s not a lot of fanfare. The room is half dark, the whole wing half empty - anybody well enough to drink and be merry is off doing so. Poe usually puts in an appearance, later, even if he knows better than to touch a drink himself. 

“Hey there,” he says, quietly, when Finn’s eyelids begin to flutter. The noise of the machines, registering signs of life, attract the medic droid on duty. Poe takes a step back, but not far. After a moment, Finn’s eyes seem to manage to focus, and his gaze immediately settles on Poe. 

“Poe Dameron,” he says, and though his voice is barely above a rasp, it’s got such a note of relief that Poe falls in love shamelessly, and immediately. 

 

 

Finn cannot walk, and so Poe does not leave. 

He _will_ be able to walk, they say. But Poe has heard similar promises before. Normalcy is transient but, truthfully, it is also fluid. For Finn, though, he keeps these things to himself, and offers encouragement, and smiles, and whatever the man needs. Because he can’t help it. Finn is, a little, like the moment where he breaks out of the atmosphere and there’s nothing in front of him. Terrifying, and beautiful. 

Because Finn, for all that he claims to be no hero, is absolutely fearless. 

First it’s a wheelchair, and then crutches for a while. They can hobble outside, together, in the days or the nights. BB-8 following along, as always. Finn watches the sky, or the earth, or everything in between, and Poe watches him. It’s like suspended animation, when they’re together. Not quite real. 

Finn is in love with everything new and Poe is in love with him. 

 

 

They start sleeping together.

Poe isn’t really sure what to call it, because while _he_ may be in love, Finn’s never had anything like this before. He’s not sure how to go about it. He’d said as much, biting his lip, looking to Poe tentatively for reassurance. He’d said _love_ was not a word that came up to often among the stormtroopers. He’s not sure what it feels like. He’s not sure what a feeling like that would mean. He hopes Poe understands. 

And so Poe kisses him, fingers in his hair, and that seems to be understanding enough. 

Finn is still on crutches, and sometimes his fine motor skills are a little subpar, or he trips, or Poe has to help him out of his shoes. Poe, of course, is undeterred, but Finn is frustrated in a way Poe understands intimately. He’s frustrated because he’s _alive_ , but not _better._

“You’ll keep improving,” Poe encourages. “Eventually it’ll just be a scar, nothing more.”

He says this, and feels no guilt, even if it was never quite true for his own self. BB-8 chirps a few minutes later, reminding him to take his medication before breakfast. He obeys. 

But--

But, regardless, they sleep together. And, eventually, make love - it takes time, and patience, but that immediate, preternatural trust between them works to their advantage. Poe kisses that soft spot where chin meets neck and Finn relaxes, and smiles into his hair. 

Afterwards, things are still and soft and quiet in a way that Poe might have once taken for granted. 

 

 

General Organa invites Poe to lunch, as she does every so often. It is of some note that he is one of very few actual fighters ever allotted such an honor. And, if he were to dwell on it, it would also be of some note that he and Kylo Ren are quite close in age, and intensity, and that perhaps the General’s intentions are a little less strategic than she’d ever let on. 

Kylo Ren, however, is not something he will think about in her presence. BB-8 senses his discomfort and asks if he’d like to take preventative drugs, but Poe dismisses it. Not in front of the General. 

“So, how’s your friend Finn doing?” she asks, perfectly nonchalant, under the canopy of the canteen’s back patio. She knows the reality of the situation, of course, but seems to respect Poe’s own bafflement over exactly what to call it. 

“He’s getting better,” Poe replies, without looking up from the butterknife on the edge of his plate. “He just feels useless. A remnant of the culture he came out of, I suppose.”

“A feeling you understand, I’m sure,” Organa says casually. “After that crash on--”

“Yes, but I’m fine now,” he says quickly, and when he looks up again, he can even smile. “I’ve adapted.”

She, however, only narrows her eyes at him in that disconcerting way of hers. After they’ve finished eating, and discussed refugee transport and recon coordination among the X-wings, she shakes his hand. It’s as unforgiving a grip as ever, but she says “Take care of yourself, Poe,” in a way he’s never heard before. 

 

 

There’s a brand on Finn’s left chest that marks him as First Order property. At first, Poe has a hard time looking at it - he thinks of Kylo Ren, of Finn alone and faceless, and he feels the color drain from his face. Finn, though, had encouraged him not to ignore it. He says the meaning changes when Poe traces it with gentle, reverent fingers. To touch it is to alter its significance. 

So, with his head lying against Finn’s collarbone, he’s gotten to the point where he can trace the circular mark with one finger and not feel suffocated. Where the rise and fall of Finn’s breathing doesn’t seem temporary. After a few minutes, or possibly years, Finn catches his wrist, and turns it over so that the skin of Poe’s inner forearm is caught by the light of his bedside lamp. 

“What happened here?” Finn asks, eyes roaming the uneven pink of the scar all the way up to where it widens above his elbow and encircles his bicep. A dark constellation tattoo covers the rest of it, and a few other inked designs blot out older scars on his back. It’s a habit for Resistance pilots to disrupt the remnants of death with beauty. 

“Old burn,” Poe replies, too quickly. “They couldn’t find a good skin donor at the time.”

“Was it a crash, or…”

“Welding accident,” he says, because he never wants to lie to Finn, and that version, at least, is almost the truth. 

Silence falls. Finn is, it seems, too innocent to know when there’s more to a story. Poe almost wishes he’d prod further, but instead he ends up trying to define what _love_ actually is. He’s been working on a clear definition, lately, for Finn’s sake. It’s turned into a list. _Love is preferring your company over everyone else’s_ , Poe thinks. _It’s an inexplicable need to hold hands, when no is looking, or even when they are. It’s your picture taped to the dash of my X-wing. It’s your breath stirring the hairs at the nape of my neck._

He thinks he might have a good answer, now, if Finn wants to know about love. He hasn’t asked, though. 

BB-8 breaks into the silence to remind Poe to take his evening pills. Finn doesn’t ask about that, either.

 

 

The General greets him on a Wednesday morning and tells him she wants him gone for a standard month, or for however long it takes to track down whatever’s left of Starkiller high command. She doesn’t say to find Kylo Ren, but that’s what she means. And she expects Poe to do it - what no one else has been able to manage so far.

He’s never questioned her, and he’s not going to start now. Even if he’s got someone that’s going to miss him if he doesn’t come home. Even if just the thought of Kylo Ren makes him _feel_ far too much. The man’s invaded Poe’s mind and severed Finn’s spine. Poe’s not sure what exactly Organa expects him to bring back, but Ren’s severed head sounds like a lovely idea. 

He leaves early in the morning to avoid too many goodbyes. It’d worked last time he’d gone out for a long solo mission - the General had been the only one to see him off to Jakku. Now, though, Finn is here, too, and after the General has offered him a resolute nod and a _may the Force be with you_ , she leaves the two of them to it. 

Finn, still on crutches but healing in a way Poe is infinitely envious of, wraps him in a long hug, and Poe deflates into it in the hope that it’ll last the whole month. He knows things will be easier once he’s out there, once it’s just BB-8 and the black. But, right now, it’s unbearable. 

“Take care of him.” Finn kneels down, mindful of the crutches and his spine, to place a hand on BB-8 with a melancholy smile. The droid beeps out something along the lines of _of course, that’s my job,_ but Finn doesn’t understand. 

Poe pulls him back to his feet and kisses him breathless. 

This is the moment where he should say _I love you,_ because it’s true, but he doesn’t. 

 

 

His first lead sends him out to the Outer Rim territories, and from there he planet hops, across ocean worlds and jungles and deserts and glaciers. He expects Kylo Ren to step from the shadows at any moment and trap him where he stands. Reach into his mind until Poe loses control again. 

Ren, though, does not appear. Poe, it seems, is just a step behind - sometimes he swears that if he stands in just the right spot, he can feel an old essence. No one’s ever accused him of being Force sensitive, but maybe that’s it; a disturbance in something universal and permeable. Ren disrupts it with every step. 

Time passes in approximations; Poe isn’t really sure how long it’s been when the trail goes cold on Abafar. Certainly longer than a month. He’s running low on medication - even if BB-8 will turn him on his side if he falls, or take over flying if he’s unable, it’s still a delicate balance. Staying on the meds is always his best option, regardless of whether BB is at his back. 

He lands on D’Qar and finds that he’s been gone three months. 

He’s grown a beard and lost weight and has nothing to show for his time away. It’s a bit of a blow to the ego - the second, in recent times, since he’d spilled Resistance secrets in captivity also. He’s better than this. He needs to be better. 

He contacts the control tower just as he’s about to break atmo, and by the time he slides into a dock, there’s a crowd waiting for him on the tarmac. They can’t be expecting much; he’d sent off a report on Abafar that had told them he was alive, empty handed, and coming home. Still, they’ve assembled - the ace pilots, a few members of high command, and Finn, leading the pack with a grin so lovely it almost hurts. 

Poe climbs down from the cockpit shakily, BB-8 waiting vigilantly at the bottom for him until he makes it down safely. For a moment, all he can do is stare. He must look awed; Finn’s grin somehow manages to widen. The crutches are gone, to be replaced by a cane that Finn drops almost immediately. He limps, desperately, into Poe’s arms, and once he’s there Poe has no intention of ever letting him go. 

“I’m so sorry,” Poe gasps. “It was too fucking long. I didn’t realize--”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Finn chants into his shoulder. “You’re here now. It’s okay.”

_Here now_. It’s good to remind himself of that, sometimes. This is reality and he’s doing okay. They’re both healing. 

 

 

Or something like that. 

He wakes up with a head full of static and a back slicked with sweat. It takes him a moment to register BB-8 frantically beeping out a warning next to the bed. He goes through the motions - takes the injection pen BB offers, jabs it into his thigh, and begins to breathe. 

Finn is fully awake, now, and looking at him expectantly. Poe doesn’t return the stare, running a hand through damp hair and setting his eyes on the floor. The nightmare won’t fade; he can still feel the phantom of Kylo Ren’s cold intrusion in his skull. Ren, registering the damage, using it to his advantage. He’d triggered a seizure and when Poe had come to, out of the haze, Ren had seemed to know all his secrets. 

The Force and epilepsy don’t seem to mix. 

Fatigue, the residuals of Ren’s invasion, and one homecoming drink with the pilots and Finn had stacked the deck against him. He should know better. BB-8 knows better, but sometimes he’s as reactionary as any of them. 

“What’s that?” Finn asks, after a long pause. 

“Nightmare,” Poe replies quickly, but Finn’s eyes are on the medication in his hand. There’s another long, loaded silence, and then Poe asks, “Do you know what epilepsy is?”

Finn doesn’t, of course. If you’re a stormtrooper with a traumatic brain injury that doesn’t heal on it’s own, then you’re dead. There’s no room to survive a minor training crash, to get severely concussed. To be _alive_ but not _better._

“I thought I was okay, after they let me out of medbay,” Poe admits. “They thought so, too. Then one day I was doing some routine maintenance, just re-adjusting the compression coil so that the thrusters--” he cuts himself off, marveling, for a moment, at how clear that day is in his mind. “Welding. That was the first time it happened. I must have seized, and fallen. When I woke up I was on fire.”

“Shit,” Finn murmurs. He’s sitting up now, and though Poe’s eyes are on the wall in front of him, he can feel Finn’s fingers ghosting over the scarred and inked skin on his shoulder. “Are you going to get better?”

Poe aims for a nonchalant shrug, and falls short. “It’s been five years. They don’t know why I’m not.” Finn’s hand glides to his hip, and squeezes. “I can fly, as long as BB looks after me. It’s under control, for the most part. If I sleep enough and don’t drink and--”

“Kylo Ren,” Finn fills in, barely above a whisper. 

“Yeah,” Poe responds, lamely. There’s not much else to say. Poe is not like Finn; he’s not getting better. He’s right where he is. _Here now._

Finn withdraws his hands, and Poe tries not to choke. “I’m gonna get some fresh air,” Poe adds, softly, and Finn doesn’t protest when he slips on a shirt and disappears outside. 

 

 

“I didn’t find him,” he tells the General. They’re in an empty corner of Central Command, just out of earshot from where Snap is plotting out the route for the next supply run. “I lost the trail on Abafar. Maybe before that, if I’m honest.”

Organa doesn’t say anything for a long while, eyes on a point just past Poe’s left shoulder. 

“Good,” she breathes, finally. Poe does not read into it. 

He looks down at where just the tip of the welding scar sticks out past the cuff of his flightsuit. 

“You’re okay?” she asks, pointing the full force of her penetrating gaze at him. He swallows, and nods, and she lets out an identical, “Good.”

 

 

The night is cool. Poe regrets his wardrobe choice, and shivers. He sets down on the grass, just out of range of the base’s security floodlamps and the airstrip ground lighting. BB-8 has followed him, and the only sound is the breeze in the trees and the vague whir of BB’s inner workings. They sit together, surrounded by night, but Poe can’t make out any stars. 

Eventually, there are footsteps. 

Finn is wearing _the_ jacket - Poe’s old flight jacket, the tear in the back painstakingly sewn together. Finn, very carefully, settles into a sitting position that won’t bother his spine, and BB scoots over to let him in next to Poe. 

“I love you,” Finn says, abruptly. 

Poe looks at him. “How do you know?”

“I just do,” he shrugs. “I was trying to quantify it, but they may have been a misunderstanding on my part.”

Poe nods. “It’s a feeling.”

“And this.” Finn reaches into one of the many inner pockets in the jacket, and pulls out a folded photograph. It’s Poe, grinning lopsidedly while he hangs on to the side of his X-wing, helmet under one arm. He can’t quite place when it was taken, but Finn has obviously gone to some lengths to get it printed, and hold onto it. “I take it out and look at it when I’m upset,” he explains. “I figured that must mean something.”

Finn smiles a little, then, when their eyes meet, and he’s so goddamn sincere that Poe has no choice but to press their lips together. Finn twists as much as he can without pain, until their arms are around each other, and Poe can feel the other man’s heartbeat. 

“I love you,” Poe says, out loud, and it’s so much better than hearing it on repeat in his head. _Here now_ , he thinks. This is okay. This is healing, even if he himself isn’t. 

Finn holds him closer.

**Author's Note:**

> lafayette1777.tumblr.com


End file.
